Teaching Notes

For the first time in recorded history, bacteria, viruses, and other plagues and pestilence do not cause the majority of deaths or disabilities in any region of the world. Curbing infectious diseases has extended lives and prevented child deaths in poor societies, but also brought new and unexpected challenges—like rising youth unemployment, overcrowded and underbuilt cities, and surging rates of premature chronic diseases—that many nations are unprepared to handle. In Plagues and the Paradox of Progress, Thomas J. Bollykytraces the rise and fall of infectious disease in human history and the challenges and opportunities that unprecedented health achievements pose for our future.

In The Third Revolution, Economy reveals Xi Jinping’s new China model—more controlling and authoritarian at home with a more ambitious and activist role abroad—and asks us to fundamentally rethink how the United States and others approach this complex and increasingly powerful country.

Rapid economic growth and improved governance across Africa in the twenty-first century are part of the “Africa rising” narrative and have renewed interest in the continent. In Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, John Campbell and Matthew T. Page provide an accessible, one-of-a-kind overview of Nigeria. Using a question-and-answer format, they discuss what makes Nigeria unique, how it operates domestically and internationally, the challenges it faces, and why it has the potential to become Africa’s greatest power.

As the principal guarantor of international peace and security in an increasingly turbulent world, the United States is at risk of being drawn into potentially costly conflicts that, over time, diminish its power. In Preventive Engagement, Paul Stares offers a new comprehensive strategy for lowering this risk by reducing the demand for U.S. power overseas in the long, medium, and short term.

In Realism and Democracy: American Foreign Policy after the Arab Spring, Elliott Abrams tells a personal story of the development of U.S. human rights policy in the last forty years and makes an argument, both "realist" and principled, for supporting the expansion of democracy in the Middle East.

In his book A Great Place to Have a War, Joshua Kurlantzick tells the story of the CIA’s covert war in Laos during the Vietnam War. He examines how the country became, surprisingly, a U.S. policy priority, and analyzes why and how the CIA was able to build the war into one of the biggest covert operations in U.S. history. He further uses the Laos war as a prism to examine the CIA’s operations in the global war on terror today.

Solar energy, the world’s cheapest and fastest-growing power source, could one day supply most of the world’s energy needs. In Taming the Sun, however, Varun Sivaram warns that solar’s current surge is on track to stall, dimming prospects for averting catastrophic climate change. Brightening those prospects, he argues, will require innovation—creative financing, revolutionary technologies, and flexible energy systems.

Against the backdrop of China’s mounting influence and North Korea’s growing nuclear capability and expanding missile arsenal, South Korea faces a set of strategic choices that will shape its economic prospects and national security. In South Korea at the Crossroads, Scott A. Snyder examines the trajectory of fifty years of South Korean foreign policy and offers predictions―and a prescription―for the future. Pairing a historical perspective with a shrewd understanding of today’s political landscape, Snyder contends that South Korea’s best strategy remains investing in a robust alliance with the United States.

In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin’s on the rise, U.S. officials under new secretary of state George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events.

How a fiercely independent India takes its place as a leading power needs to be on the shortlist of questions that will shape this century. With its huge military and growing economy, India is ready to set its own terms, from defense to climate to trade as a “leading power,” in the words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While the United States has been the world’s greatest champion of international cooperation, it has often resisted rules it wishes to see binding for other countries. In The Sovereignty Wars, Stewart M. Patrick defines what is at stake in the U.S. sovereignty debate. To protect U.S. sovereignty while advancing American interests, he asserts that the nation must occasionally make “sovereignty bargains” by trading its freedom of independent action in exchange for greater influence through expanded international cooperation.

A World in Disarray, a VICE special report, draws on Richard Haass's eponymous book and explores the disorder in today’s international landscape using four regional case studies: Syria, Ukraine, the South China Sea, and North Korea.

A World in Disarray traces the origins of contemporary "order," including the state of the world following the Cold War when, for the first time in the modern era, major power rivalry was not the principal cause of disorder.

The Amazon rainforest absorbs more greenhouse gases than any other tropical forest. But in Brazil, deforestation has claimed nearly a fifth of its tree cover, which threatens biodiversity and contributes to climate change.

In his new book, State Capitalism: How the Return of Statism is Transforming the World, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia Joshua Kurlantzick analyzes the rise in state capitalism in developing nations, including China, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa, among other states. He defines state capitalism as situations in which governments control or exert significant influence over at least one-third of the largest corporations in a country.

Today, nations increasingly carry out geopolitical combat through economic means. Policies governing everything from trade and investment to energy and exchange rates are wielded as tools to win diplomatic allies, punish adversaries, and coerce those in between. Not so in the United States, however. America still too often reaches for the gun over the purse to advance its interests abroad. The result is a playing field sharply tilting against the United States.

In The Hacked World Order, Adam Segal shows how governments use the web to wage war, spy on, coerce, and damage each other. While scholars, activists, and technologists initially heralded the Internet as a space outside of state control, governments have been quick to step into this new domain—both to control activity that happens within it and to adopt it as a new tool of state power.

The eastern Congo has been ravaged by foreign invasions and homegrown rebellions that have killed and displaced millions. A fragile peace process seeks to bring stability to central Africa, but its hard-won gains remain at risk.

In Red Team, CFR Senior Fellow Micah Zenko provides an in-depth investigation into the work of red teams, revealing the best practices, most common pitfalls, and most effective applications of these modern-day devil’s advocates.

In this book, CFR Senior Fellow Scott A. Snyder and coauthor Brad Glosserman investigate the roots of fractured relations between Japan and South Korea and their ongoing threat to the region and the world. Teaching notes by the author.